She rose, she uttered a little scream in a deep way.
“What is that you say!” she cried.
“Madam,” he said, “nothing can be gained by evasion. The Mr Bundy of the photograph was interesting and slim; the Mr Bundy of to-day is interesting and fat. It was to acquaint you of that fact—of a trifling misrepresentation, common, it appears, to you both—that I accepted my commission.”
Miss Cox rose, she clasped her hands exquisitely and craned her lean neck.
“Fat!” she whispered.
“I cannot qualify the term,” said Gilead firmly. “As fat, Madam, as butter. What then? Napoleon was fat, Horace was fat; Johnson, Boswell, Gibbon, Luther, Handel were all fat. Mr Bundy cannot be blamed for emulating the example of those great men; and if—”
“Fat!” repeated the lady, closing her eyes, and in a voice of thrilled ecstasy: “I doat, simply doat on a fat man!”
“You do?” responded Gilead, with an air of delighted relief. “Then, Madam, a fat man doats on you, and nothing remains to me but to congratulate you both on this most happy termination to a misunderstanding.”
He bowed, as if he felt his mission accomplished.
“O, stay, sir!” cried Miss Cox. She took a quick step forward; she pressed her handkerchief to her bosom. “My Bundy!” she murmured—“My own Bundy! And was it apprehension over his little roguish deceit that moved him to this step? But I fear, I shudder over my own. Will he forgive it? Will he credit that the waste, the decline—O, we starve on despond: hope is so filling! Tell him that his message has put new life into me; tell him that, repossessing him, I am already twice the woman I was. To meet him half-way, I will absorb the sustenance naturally repugnant to me—gross meats and aliments, in place of the fruits and spring water most sufficing to my needs. Tell him that, given a little time—”